Coming Up, Going Down

1888

As the doors opened on the sixth floor of the skyscraper in Wilmington, Delaware, Larkin Bonham stepped out onto his floor. Two men stood by his office door.

“Good morning,” Bonham beamed.

“Good morning, Mr. Bonham. Your secretary granted us permission to speak with you at once.”

“Alright, please, come into my world,” Bonham announced.

“What we wanted to discuss were the placards.”

“Placards?”

“You know, those little diplomas that appear on your elevators…?”

“Oh, right. What about them?”

“They’re signed by private organizations. As chief of the Building Safety Agency, I’m stating you have thirty days to get a government official to inspect those elevators.”

“Or….” Bonham asked.

“Or face stiff penalties like a fine of $100.”

“For what? I need some bureaucrat to tell me about my own business and with whom I wish to transact? That I need some kind of nanny to say that a private man who may lose his job or go to jail if the elevator stops operating correctly and people are injured or killed? A government official will only satisfy the simplest imbecile. That g-man will only move laterally if the elevator fails to start coming up or going down, I know that much.”

“You don’t understand. The Building Safety Agency wants to provide a service at no charge and is fully backed by a federal guarantee. Everybody wins. You get inspected officially, we get to ensure the public that your elevators are safe.”

“I already have a man who does that. He is more than capable of checking to see the robust nature of my building and how it operates.”

The other man spoke this time. “What you’re trying to do is make a mockery of this whole affair.”

Bonham smirked. He wrote a check for $1,000. “Please leave, now.”